First thoughts: Isn't it ironic?
Posted: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 9:24 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
First Thoughts
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** Isn’t it ironic? Here's what might be going through the minds of key members of the White House team today: Many of the folks who helped get the country into this economic mess -- including Wall Street and even a few financial pundits -- have been complaining the loudest that the administration, just seven weeks on the job, isn't up to the task. Their latest criticism: The Obama White House is doing too much. Rather than focusing exclusively on the economy, they argue, the administration is also working on health care (as it did last week), stem cells (yesterday), and education (today). From the administration’s point of view, it’s probably better to be criticized for doing too much rather than doing too little. That said, the White House has realized that it needs to do a better job in talking to Wall Street, so it is dispatching key economic aides (like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner) to give speeches and interviews in the hope that their words will help reverse the Dow’s downturn. The problem the White House is dealing with is that its most credible messenger on everything right now is the president himself. If Geithner had been better received publicly, they could outsource some of these economic conversations. But right now they can't. This week is a test for the rest of the Obama economic team, as the White House could quiet the criticism if one or more of the economic players were seen as calming influences on Wall Street.
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VIDEO: As President Obama prepares to unveil his ambitious plan to overhaul education, some are saying he should bring his focus back to the economy. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.
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Hey, teachers, leave them kids alone: As mentioned above, at 9:45 am ET, President Obama will deliver a speech on education reform to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s conference in DC. As he did on the campaign trail, the
New York Daily News writes, Obama will call for merit pay for teachers, as well as termination for poorly performing teachers. Of course, this speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce shines today’s political spotlight on the Latino vote, which Obama won by a 67%-31% margin in November -- and that was against a man considered to be one of the Latino community’s biggest GOP allies. Just throwing this out there, but what happens if Obama appoints the first Hispanic (Sonia Sotomayor) to the Supreme Court? As smart Republican strategists have asserted, the next Republican presidential candidate will need to win more than 40% of the Hispanic vote to be able to win in 2012. But if McCain, who hails from a border state and who championed comprehensive immigration reform, couldn’t do that, then which Republican can? Romney? Palin? Pawlenty? Jindal?
*** The loyal opposition: Speaking of McCain, it looks like he is getting more and more comfortable becoming both an opponent and potential partner with Obama on various issues. He's very public with his criticism, but accepts every invite from the White House to work on key issues. “These are terrible, perilous times, so I will seek ways to work with the president of the United States,” McCain told Politico in an interview. “I don’t want him to fail in his mission of restoring our economy.” But here’s the rub, Politico adds: “On the central issue of the economy, the two men are so far apart it is difficult to see them collaborating effectively.”
*** Riding the omnibus: The Senate today will vote on the $410 billion omnibus spending bill, and the legislation is expected to pass. But before the bill goes to the president for his signature, NBC’s Ken Strickland notes, Democratic leaders will have to beat back any amendment that would change the overall bill -- as they did to four amendments yesterday. Speaker Pelosi has threatened that if the bill is altered (forcing it back to the House and dragging out the prospects for final passage), she'd kill it, earmarks included. As a result, Congress would likely have to pass a continuing resolution that funds government operations at last year’s lower spending levels. Strick says the amendment today that is giving Democratic leaders the most political heartburn is one on congressional pay raises offered by GOP Sen. David Vitter (who is up for re-election in 2010 and is trying to make Louisiana voters forget about that prostitution thing). Vitter’s amendment would require members to vote publicly on their annual pay increases instead of the current system that lets it kick in automatically. To counter Vitter's amendment, Majority Leader Reid introduced a stand-alone bill similar to Vitter's amendment to give his members some political cover. They could vote against it today and for vote it later IF it ever comes to the floor.
*** Omnibus odds and ends: The omnibus legislation, of course, has received plenty of attention and criticism for the earmarks that are in it. But here are a few things worth keeping in mind: It contains 8,570 known earmarks totaling $7.7 billion, which represents less than 2% of the $410 billion bill; according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the total amount in earmarks for FY’09 is $500 million less than it was in FY’08; during the campaign, Obama promised to reform the earmarks process -- “go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely” -- but he never said he’d eliminate earmarks; that said, the president did tout that his stimulus didn’t contain a single earmark; and the White House has said Obama will outline a process moving forward on earmarks.
*** Talk about chutzpah: Is it just us, or does AIG use some amazing language to talk the government into more bailouts? GM has used similar language and hasn't gotten nearly the attention from the government. Check out this graph in the Washington Post: "The collapse, for instance, would strain the global insurance industry, hurt the value of the dollar and damage money-market funds, AIG warned. The company's failure, it added, would also erase taxpayers' existing investment in the firm and foster ‘doubts about the ability of the U.S. to support its banking system.’” So one of the reasons AIG gave for the government to increase its stake is that AIG failing would somehow send the message that the government could not succeed in bailouts? So, let us get this straight: AIG used "perception" to sell the government on more money? Isn't perception what got us into this mess?
*** The 50-day mark: Today just happens to be the 50th day of the Obama administration. Our friends at Politifact use this milestone to note that Obama so far has kept 17 promises (including yesterday’s action on embryonic stem-cell research) and has broken two promises. Meanwhile, the RNC research has greeted Obama’s 50th day with a different kind of commemoration: a press released entitled, “Obama’s First 50 Days Have Brought Outrageous Spending, DVDs For Foreign Policy, Personnel Issues, And Little Change To Washington."
*** In Bruges -- er, Brussels: Vice President Biden today is in Belguim, where he will meet with the North American Council, the forum for NATO’s members, to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan. Biden will also meet with NATO’s secretary general, as well as with European Union leaders.
Countdown to NY-20 special: 21 days
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Countdown to VA Dem primary: 91 days
Countdown to Election Day 2009: 238 days
Countdown to Election Day 2010: 602 days
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